New London – The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is pleased to announce a new three-part lecture series: “Sunday Salon,” which for this Spring, highlights three collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The series debuts on March 8 at 2:00pm in the Museum’s Lehman auditorium, with a reception to follow.

Acclaimed speakers include Sally Brown, Co-Chair of the Visiting Committee to the Met’s Musical Instruments Department, Dr. Sylvia Yount, Chief Curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Dr. C. Griffith Mann, Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge, The Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters.

Program Details

Sunday, March 8, 2:00pm
Sally Brown, Co-Chair of the Visiting Committee to the Met’s Musical Instruments DepartmentAn Incurable Collector: Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown (1842-1918)
Sally Brown, the great granddaughter of the subject of this presentation, will speak about Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown as a singular woman collector of musical instruments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She operated independently, first giving about 300 instruments to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1889. By her death in 1918 her gifts of instruments and supporting objects totaled about 4,000. Sally Brown will explore how Mary Elizabeth managed such a feat and the lasting significance of her contribution to art history and to the history of American women.

Sunday, April 12, 2:00pm
Dr. Sylvia Yount, Chief Curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtPast as Present: Colonial Revivals
Join Sylvia Yount, newly appointed Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for a fresh look at America’s most enduring cultural phenomenon, the so-called Colonial Revival. As a direct outgrowth of this fascination with our nation’s past, the Met’s American Wing was founded in 1924 as a museum of historical interiors and Americana. Yount will explore how these roots have shaped the development of the Wing’s collections over the decades, and how they continue to inspire future growth and relevancy for 21st-century audiences.

Sunday, May 3, 2:00pm
Dr. C. Griffith Mann, Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge, The Department of Medieval Art and The CloistersBringing the Middle Ages to Life: The Cloisters from the Inside Out
This talk offers an insider’s perspective on The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s branch museum devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Learn about the history of the building, explore selected works of art from the collection, and discover what makes The Cloisters such a unique destination.

The admission fee is $15 per lecture for members, $20 per lecture for non-members. Alternatively, one can sign up for all 3 programs at the discounted price of $40 for members or $55 for non-members.

Advance reservations are required: please contact the museum at 860-443-2545 x129. For more information or images, please contact Rebecca Marsie at 860.443.2545 x112 or at marsie@lymanallyn.org.

About the Lyman Allyn Art Museum
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes about 25,000 visitors annually from New London, Southeastern Connecticut and all over the world. Established in 1926 by a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the Museum opened the doors of its beautiful neo-classical building surrounded by 11 acres of green space in 1932. Today it presents a number of changing exhibitions each year and houses a fascinating collection of more than 15,000 objects from ancient times to the present; artworks from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts and Victorian toys and doll houses.

The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, exit 83 off I-95. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. For more information call 860.443.2545, ext. 129 or visit us on Facebook or the web at: www.lymanallyn.org.